Odds and Ends

Last One Speaks has some great stuff as usual. And thanks to Libby for her support on my little censorship problem.

The Drug Sense Weekly and Drug War Chronicle newsletters are chock full of good stuff again this week. Be sure to check them out.

The U.S. is continuing its boneheaded foreign drug policy by denying a visa to Bolivian coca grower leader Evo Morales, who also heads the country’s second largest political party. That’s right – support hard-line drug war puppets that end up with revolt, while pretending the real concerns of the Bolivian people don’t exist.

Via TalkLeft:

1. Oakland, California may begin regulating pot cafes
2. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down ‘suspicionless’ school drug testing. Great news!

“The theory apparently is that, even in the absence of any suspicion of drug or alcohol abuse, it is appropriate to single these students out and say, in effect: ‘Choose one: your Pennsylvania constitutional right to privacy or the chess club,’ ” Justice Ronald D. Castille wrote in a 32-page opinion.

“What lesson does a program targeting the personal privacy of some but not all students and lacking both individualized suspicion or any reasoned basis for a suspicionless search teach our young?” Castille wrote.

Surrey cricketers in drug-testing farce

One day last summer, testers from UK Sport arrived at the ground where Surrey were playing at 9am and asked the quartet to provide urine samples. All were found to be negative but the testers were unhappy, having been kept waiting until after 6.30pm.

They tried to bring the athletes up on charges, but had failed to read the rules…

One of the players claimed he had not provided a sample earlier as he could not be disturbed during “office hours” – 9am to 6:30pm for a cricketer.

The rules allow an athlete to provide a sample at the end of their sporting activity and the athletes were following the rules precisely.